At the Salt Lake Police Department, the only thing officers are handcuffing is freedom. Like most Americans, Eric Moutsos never dreamed that his faith would cost him his job. But that’s exactly what happened last summer after the long-time policeman asked for a different post at the city’s gay pride event.

He was asked, along with other members of the team, to lead the motorcycle brigade at the very front of the parade. Moutsos said he “felt uncomfortable doing what he considered celebratory circles with other motorcycles leading the parade because of his religious views” and asked to be placed somewhere else at the event. “It is unquestionably my duty as a police officer to protect everyone’s right to hold a parade or other event, but is it also my duty to celebrate everyone’s parade?” For that particular assignment, he explained, “It looks like we and I are in support of this parade. I said I would feel the same way if this was an abortion parade. I would feel the same way if it was a marijuana parade.”

Not once did he refuse to work the parade — yet in the middle of working out a compromise with his boss, he was suspended. The move absolutely blind-sided him. Shocked, the dad of four went home and

told his family what happened. Almost immediately, the story broke that an unidentified member of the Salt Lake Police Department had been put on a leave of absence for “discrimination.”

In typical P.C. fashion, Chief Chris Burbank spun the controversy as a story of prejudice and bias. “It has nothing to do with religious freedom — that has to do with the hatred of those individuals and what the parade stands for, which is about unity and coming together,” he told local reporters. Obviously, the chief is too busy policing people’s views to protect them. After six months of absolute turmoil, Moutsos decided to come forward and reveal his identity. As a Mormon — whose church recently threw its support behind the very ordinances that make this kind of persecution possible — Eric wants to turn his oppression into an opportunity.

In an interview with Deseret News, Moutsos said his story should be a warning to every American who thinks same-sex “marriage” and homosexuality won’t affect them. “We can 100 percent disagree and still 100 percent love. I hate that we’re labeled in this way that is so divisive.” Although Moutsos found a job with another police agency, he thinks his most important work is protecting religious liberty. He hasn’t been asked to testify to lawmakers, but he’d like to.

Like Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, Eric was told to either check his beliefs at the door or get out of public service. If the Mormon Church thinks that throwing its weight behind sexual orientation-gender identity measures like Houston’s will shield people like him, they’re sorely mistaken. How do you protect anyone’s freedom of belief if you give the government another weapon to punish it? All this does is force Christians underground — or worse, into a religious ghetto cut off from the rest of society.

First of all, that’s not what we’re called to do in the church. And secondly, it’s not what our freedoms allow. It’s tough to get the American people to agree on anything — but they agree on that. In FRC’s survey released this week by WPA Opinion, 81% of the country (which as unanimous as it gets in the polling community) agreed that the government should leave people alone to live and work according to their beliefs. If anyone’s ready to lead that parade, we are!

Those who hold to the historical and traditional view of marriage as between one man and one woman have long warned that if homosexual marriage is permitted, it will only be the beginning of the end of the very definition of marriage. Now, it seems like those predictions are coming true.

A new arrangement masquerading as marriage has recently emerged. Christian News Network reports:

Photos of three Thai men who recently ‘married’ each other have gone viral, garnering societal support for the concept of same-sex “throuples” worldwide, but also generating remarks from Christians about the confirmation of the slippery slope that has long been predicted.

Yes, that’s right, now three people can apparently claim to be in a three person marriage. But, this is not the first time this has happened.

Christian news Network goes on:

As previously reported, last May, three women in Massachusetts exchanged vows as they claimed to be the world’s first lesbian “throuple.”

A “slippery slope”? This is a gaping chasm for society. First, it was two people of the same sex. Now it’s three people of the same sex. Why only three? Why not seven, fourteen, twenty-four? After all, as the same sex advocates have chanted for years – love is love. As Christian News Network explains:

“The events in Thailand simply confirm what we’ve been saying all this time: If marriage is no longer the union of one man and one woman, then it can be anything: Two men, two women, three men, three women, or an almost infinite number of other possibilities,” Dr. Michael Brown wrote for Charisma News.

He noted that the situation demonstrates how mankind has made up its own rules along the way in an attempt to legitimize and justify what a particular person wants. Since homosexuals have stated that marriage should be defined as the union of two people who have feelings for each other, regardless of gender, where does the rule about two people come from?

If there is no standard for marriage, there can be no marriage. If there is no understanding of the spiritual, historical, and familial understanding of marriage, there can be no marriage; only groups of people choosing to cohabitate.

The devastating effect on children in these unusual arrangements is just now beginning to be seen. The societal effect will be exponential. No society has ever long survived without strong nuclear families. Ours will be no exception.

When Hillary Clinton wrote the book – It Takes A Village – perhaps this is what she had in mind! The old Hollywood movie – Yours, Mine, and Ours – also can now be seen in a new light.

But, in all seriousness, Dr. Michael Brown concludes:
“Those who have taken down the fence of marriage as God intended it have opened up a Pandora’s Box of possibilities,” he said, “none of them good.”

He is right. We are still just at the beginning of how bizarre it will become if we continue down this path of societal self-annihilation!

Whenever and wherever normal people resist the mainstreaming of homosexuality, the LGBT movement and its allies attribute that resistance to “a climate of hate and fear” orchestrated by evil “homophobes” who exploit the prejudices of the ignorant by telling lies about “gay and lesbian people” who “just want equal rights.” They predict a wave of violence against “sexual minorities” and then set out to create their own evidence in support of it, all for the purpose of manipulating public opinion and public officials into the role of “protectors of the innocent.”

Here in America the strategy was first initiated on a small scale with human rights commissions at the local level in the 1970s, then at the state level and finally nationally in conjunction with the current massive leftist campaign to create a constitutional right to “gay marriage” by judicial fiat. Homosexualist Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy famously struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor on the grounds that opposition to homosexual “marriage” was motivated by “animus” (hatred). SCOTUS will likely use the same false logic when it rules for “gay marriage” this summer (absent a miraculous intervention by God).

This dangerous LGBT strategy has now gone global and the target is the Russian Federation.

To those who don’t fully recognize the Machiavellian character of the LGBT movement, or the extent to which the American media (even to an increasing extent FOX News) has become a sort-of “Gay Pravda,” what I’m about to state may seem crazy, but bear with me.

Not that it doesn’t also serve other globalist interests, but I have come to believe that protecting and advancing the LGBT agenda is the primary reason that Barack Obama orchestrated the coup to start a civil war in Ukraine. (See this excellent article on the theme that Obama‘s foreign policy is ideologically driven, though it doesn‘t specifically address the homosexual agenda.)

We were reminded this week that the LGBT agenda is a “core value” of the Obama administration when he appointed the first ever U.S. global envoy for “gay rights.” He had previously tasked the State Department to make the LGBT agenda a top priority of US policy abroad.

To the Obama administration this is, literally, again literally, what is meant by “American values,” though most people don’t grasp this and still translate the phrase to something benign and wholesome such as “Mom and Apple Pie” or the like. To BO, core values are not freedom of speech — that’s clearly trumped by “gay rights” in his world. Nor economic freedom — you can’t run a business that refuses to bake cakes, take photos, or provide flowers for “gay weddings.” Core American values to Obama are publicly celebrated sodomy and doctor-assisted transsexual self-mutilation.

In this commitment to “gay rights” BO is joined by and represents an ideological cartel of global elitists who have cooperated together to force it upon the world. More on that in a later essay.

The Russian anti-propaganda law, passed June 11, 2013, was the first truly effective international counter-measure since the “gay” agenda went global around the turn of the millennium. Typically, the “gays” characterized the law as hateful and an incitement to violence, but in doing so they revealed that propagandizing children is part of their agenda, since the law simply classifies “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” as material that cannot be distributed among minors and commands the government to protect children from it.

Just after the passage of this law Barack Obama did an about-face on the “reset” policy (in which Russia had been recognized as an equal partner in the world community) and instead began reviving cold-war rhetoric.

During the Sochi Olympics of February 2014, BO tried to steer Russia back into line through the usual media-driven pressure tactics (which don’t work on Russians who endured worse under the Soviets).

When that didn’t work BO started the civil war in Ukraine to force Russia into its current no-win scenario there. US diplomats were caught red-handed in the early stages of this regime change.

Nuland said “F*** the EU,” because it resisted the plan for forced Ukraine regime change as inimical to its business interests but (in my view) the US didn‘t care because its interests were ideological and punitive.

BO knew, of course, that Ukraine to the Russians was the strategic equivalent of Cuba, or even Hawaii, to the US and they could never simply acquiesce to the transfer of their most critical warm-water port in Crimea and oil interests in the east to a hostile US-controlled regime.

The Russians were deliberately pushed into a situation where they could be portrayed as bullies — rather like the way a couple of “gay” activists set up the conservative State of Texas as aggressors. They (allegedly) orchestrated their own arrest for sodomy so they could portray themselves as victims to a Supreme Court majority (led by Kennedy again) looking for a chance to strike down the anti-sodomy laws. Thus we got the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas ruling, which was used as the “moral impetus” for the first “gay marriage” law in Massachusetts in 2004.

Texas wasn’t breaking down anyone’s door to enforce its sodomy law (any more than the Russians were aggressing against Ukrainians before the US coup) but was pushed into doing so by LGBT agents provocateur. No one produces better agents provocateur than the LGBT movement, which has presumably been well represented in the US intelligence agencies since Bill Clinton lifted the ban on top-secret security clearance for “gays” in 1992.

After the Ukraine coup d’etat, BO and his media stooges then joined with anti-family GOP snake-in-the-grass John McCain and his fellow neo-cons (and their media stooges) in a relentless campaign of war propaganda on the theme that Russia is intent on reconstructing the evil Soviet empire. In just over a year Obama and McCain et al, have turned Russia into a pariah state in the view of the US and EU sheeple, based on nothing but disingenuous portrayals of the Ukraine crisis and unsupported fear-mongering that Russia intends military adventures against the Baltic states.

Incidentally, John McCain’s former chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, was hired in 2013 by the ACLU “to build GOP support in the states for legislation to make gay marriage legal.”

And while we’re on the subject of Republicans, don’t believe for a second that the GOP establishment is not kowtowing to “gay rights” behind the scenes just as much as the Dems do it openly. Even under ostensibly pro-family George W. Bush the State Department was pushing the homosexual agenda around the world. I personally confronted the diplomatic staff at the US embassy in Riga, Latvia in 2007 for helping to organize a “Gay Pride” parade in defiance of an overwhelming pro-family majority in that conservative nation.

Apparently deciding it’s now time to stop hiding their homophilia, Bush dynasty heir apparent Jeb just hired a top LGBT activist as his communications director

And here’s another bombshell that missed the conservative media. The Human Rights Campaign effort to characterize American pro-family activism in foreign countries as fostering “hate and fear” (an effort which labels me Public Enemy #1) was funded by GOP mega-donors Paul Singer and Daniel Loeb.

Back to Russia. Recently I was interviewed by the BBC for a documentary the producers said was about “the global culture war.” However, the interview focused heavily on my reaction to the reports of — Surprise! — an alleged increase in “anti-gay” violence in countries that have passed laws against homosexuality” particularly Russia and Uganda These reports (which they never showed actually showed me) were allegedly prepared by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the United Nations, and Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), bastions of impartiality all. (Btw, SMUG is suing me for “Crimes Against Humanity” for preaching against homosexuality in their country).

This brings us back full circle to the theme of this essay. I told the BBC interviewer that I did not view any of these sources as trustworthy on the issue of homosexuality and cited the Matthew Shepard and David Kato murders as evidence. Indeed, I had already accused Human Rights Watch of indulging in pro-“gay” propaganda in their first video purporting to show Russian anti-gay violence (released to coincide with the Olympics), where I exposed the LGBT movement’s fraud in their characterizations of the Shepard and Kato incidents,

So here’s the moment of truth for pro-family analysts and advocates. Do you really grasp the extent to which LGBT leaders and activists will go to serve their own interests? You’ve seen what they do at the street level, against Christian businesses, etc. What would that deviltry look like on an international level, if, say, the President of the United States were a “gay” activist?

In August of 2013 I sent a open letter to President Putin, thanking him for signing the anti-propaganda law. In it I warned him “not to assume that you have fully solved the problem by the enactment of this law. The battle to protect your society from homosexualization has only just begun, and you may be surprised to discover in the coming months and years just how aggressively many world leaders will work to try to intimidate and coerce you to capitulate to homosexualist demands.”

Regardless of where one stands on Ukraine or Vladimir Putin, just for a moment consider where the pro-family movement would be if it hadn’t been for the Ukraine coup. Russia would still be (relatively speaking) a respected member of the international community offering an alternative, genuinely pro-family model for social policy. There would likely be at least a half-dozen nations which would have adopted the anti-propaganda law for themselves (with many more considering it) and there would be a healthy international debate raging on pro-family vs LGBT visions for the future. I believe the tide would probably have begun to turn in our favor, at least on the global scene, if not yet in the US or EU.

Is it really so far-fetched to believe that morally wicked, Imperialistic, Alinsky-ite Obama (credibly alleged to be a homosexual himself) started the Ukrainian civil war to punish Russia for opposing the “core value” of America, the priority of his State Department? Or (more importantly to the “gays”) to prevent the Russians from leading a pro-family counter-revolution in the world?

Are you as a pro-family conservative really going to accept the word of Barack Obama, John McCain and the mainstream media that Russia is the bad guy in this story? If you do, you really don’t know your enemy — and I’m not talking about Putin.

Next time you hear the implication that Russia has created “a climate of hate and fear” in Ukraine, Russia or anywhere else, just remember whose go-to strategy this is for smearing its opponents and how deeply they are entrenched in the media, the White House and now the GOP establishment as well.

Real estate magnate and reality television star Donald Trump shredded liberals in the media who are “dishonest” on a conference call with grassroots activists nationwide from Tea Party Patriots on Sunday night, saying he’s planning to start calling out specific reporters for their inaccurate articles.

“One of the things that the Tea Party has to be careful of is the dishonest press,” Trump said on the call, which is closed to media but Breitbart News was providing exclusive access to it.

It’s so dishonest. They don’t cover certain people accurately. We had something with Citizens United and David Bossie and it was the biggest thing they ever had—and they [the media] don’t even report on it.

I walked into the room—you couldn’t even walk in the hallway, it was so crowded, and he said there has never been anything like it. Frankly, it was incredible in a certain way. But the media didn’t report it. You have to be really, really careful with the press—not all of them, because I know some great reporters. But I’m going to start naming names because it really is incredible how dishonest the press is.”

Trump added that he doesn’t think the Tea Party movement has gotten a fair shake in the press, and that’s why he’s stood up for conservatives for years.

“I’ve always been the biggest advocate and a person who’s stuck up for the Tea Party to this day and I view it as just amazing people who work hard and want to see this country be great again,” Trump said. “I feel very strongly about that, I’ve been a long time fan and I think you know that better than anybody Jenny Beth [Martin].”

“Yes I do and we certainly appreciate that very much,” Martin, Tea Party Patriots’ co-founder, said in response during the call. “And we all have learned you certainly have to be careful with the press because they take things and they twist it and there are other times when they just make things up to suit their own agenda.”

In response to that, Trump said some in the media will make things up—or twist them out of context—to attack conservatives.

“That’s true. They will literally make things up,” Trump said.

They will take things out of context. Report a quarter of a sentence when you have a qualification on a long-running sentence—they’ll take just the part that they’re talking about and won’t put a qualification in. These are really dishonest people.

Now, again, not in all cases—but in many cases, really dishonest people. I’ve dealt with the press all my life and I’ve done fine with the press. I’ve known that they’re dishonest, and I’ve known about some high-quality people also, but I think in the world of politics I’ve met the most dishonest reporters I’ve met in any place. I think the Tea Party has been treated very, very unfairly over the years and I think that your strength is greater than even you know—there’s a great, great strength.

Martin introduced Trump, a potential 2016 presidential candidate who just hired one of the top grassroots activists in Iowa—Chuck Laudner—as “the very definition of the American success story.”

After walking through his business background and all his bestselling books, she noted that Trump’s first book, The Art of the Deal, is “considered a business classic and one of the best books of all time.”

Trump kicked off the conference call by mocking the left for pushing Global Warming.

“It’s snowing in New York and the airports are all closed and despite all of this global warming we are all hearing about—which is absolutely wild—the airports are just freezing,” Trump said. “Some cities are snowed in and more snow is coming. They’re setting a record for cold, so they’re lucky they changed the term for Global Warming to something else as you know because what’s going on now is incredible.”

He also discussed the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, which he spoke at, taking some more jabs at former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

“I really enjoyed it [CPAC]. They worked very hard,” Trump said.

I think that—I was very surprised at Bush because he got a modest set of applause and he’s very much in favor of education’s Common Core and he’s very weak on immigration, and I was actually surprised that he wants to give people who come into the country illegally Social Security and he wants to give them education.

The whole thing is ridiculous. If you’re coming to other places, they throw you out of the country but if you’re coming here they want to give you all sorts of advantages that will obviously lead ultimately to citizenship—that’ll be the next thing.

Later, Trump noted that Bush’s place in the straw poll—fifth place with 8.3 percent—came largely because of the fact he had to bus people in from K Street to vote for him and cheer for him in the crowd when he was getting booed. Trump finished eighth with 3.5 percent of the vote.

“I didn’t have buses all over the place—we didn’t do anything—and I came in ahead of a lot of the other primary candidates,” Trump said.

Trump also called on Republicans in Congress to hang tough to block funding for President Barack Obama’s illegal and unconstitutional executive amnesty. “The Republicans are so—I’m a Republican and I’m a very conservative person, and I wrote the book The Art of The Deal,” Trump said.

I’ve made a lot of money making deals. I’m very good at making deals, including deals against China and other countries that are just ripping us off. I’ve make a lot of money against China which you’ll see as I go along in this process because as far as I’m concerned it’s one of my greatest qualifications but the whole DHS funding and the whole illegal executive order, the Republicans should not fund unless they get rid of this executive order.

People are pouring across the border by the thousands, by the hundreds of thousands, and they’re just pouring across—we don’t know who they are, we don’t know where they come from, we know nothing about them.

Trump said he’s upset Republicans in Congress are seeming to cave again, though.

“I’m so disappointed that the Republicans seem to be once again cratering on the whole thing with the funding because this is the one time—we have only a short period of time [to stop this]—and believe me the last thing the president wants is to go to war on this thing,” Trump added. “I think the Republicans have all the cards and they’re not using them and they’re being conned by the Democrats.”

“They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?” — Zbigniew Brzezinski, Former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter

The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an has cited a Kuwaiti newspaper report Saturday, that US President Barack Obama thwarted an Israeli military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran. Following Obama’s threat, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reportedly forced to abort the planned Iran attack.

According to Al-Jarida, the Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon after Israel had discovered the United States and Iran had been involved in secret talks over Iran’s nuclear program and were about to sign an agreement in that regard behind Israel’s back. The report claimed that an unnamed Israeli minister who has good ties with the US administration revealed the attack plan to Secretary of State John Kerry, and that Obama then threatened to shoot down the Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.

—Obama Threatened to Shoot Down IAF Iran Strike
Kuwaiti paper claims unnamed Israeli minister with good ties with the US administration ‘revealed the attack plan to John Kerry.’
3/1/2015 By Mark Langfan

The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an has cited a Kuwaiti newspaper report Saturday, that US President Barack Obama thwarted an Israeli military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.

According to Al-Jarida, the Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon after Israel had discovered the United States and Iran had been involved in secret talks over Iran’s nuclear program and were about to sign an agreement in that regard behind Israel’s back.

The report claimed that an unnamed Israeli minister who has good ties with the US administration revealed the attack plan to Secretary of State John Kerry, and that Obama then threatened to shoot down the Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.

Al-Jarida quoted “well-placed” sources as saying that Netanyahu, along with Minister of Defense Moshe Yaalon, and then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, had decided to carry out airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear program after consultations with top security commanders.

According to the report, “Netanyahu and his commanders agreed after four nights of deliberations to task the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Benny Gantz, to prepare a qualitative operation against Iran’s nuclear program. In addition, Netanyahu and his ministers decided to do whatever they could do to thwart a possible agreement between Iran and the White House because such an agreement is, allegedly, a threat to Israel’s security.”

The sources added that Gantz and his commanders prepared the requested plan and that Israeli fighter jets trained for several weeks in order to make sure the plans would work successfully. Israeli fighter jets reportedly even carried out experimental flights in Iran’s airspace after they managed to break through radars.

Brzezinski’s idea

Former US diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski, who enthusiastically campaigned for Obama in 2008, called on him to shoot down Israeli planes if they attack Iran. “They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?” said the former national security advisor to former President Jimmy Carter in an interview with the Daily Beast.

“We have to be serious about denying them that right,” he said. “If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a ‘Liberty’ in reverse.’”

Israel mistakenly attacked the American Liberty ship during the Six-Day War in 1967.

Brzezinski was a top candidate to become an official advisor to President Obama, but he was downgraded after Republican and pro-Israel Democratic charges during the campaign that Brzezinski’s anti-Israel attitude would damage Obama at the polls.

President Barack Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli planes in 2014 if they were sent to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, according to reports attributed to a Kuwaiti newspaper.

According to the website Israel National News, the Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an cites Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida.

Al-Jarida reports that the alleged threat from the White House forced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel the planned attack.

An Israeli minister on good relations with the Obama administration reportedly tipped Secretary of State John Kerry to the plan and that Obama vowed to shoot down the planes when they crossed over U.S.-controlled airspace in Iraq.

Al-Jarida quoted “well-placed” sources saying that Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon and then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman made the plans for airstrikes after consulting top commanders.

In addition to the attacks, Netanyahu and his ministers decided to try to thwart any nuclear deal between the United States and Iran over fears that a nuclear Iran is a threat to Israel’s existence, the newspaper said.

Israeli pilots reportedly trained for weeks on the mission and even were able to fly into Iranian airspace without being detected by radar.

Israel’s fears of nuclear attack are not new. In 2007, an Israeli airstrike took out a suspected nuclear site in Syria. A 1981 airstrike took out a suspected nuclear reactor in Iraq.

Israel National News quoted a Daily Beast interview from 2009 in which former President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski urged Obama to take on any threat to Iran from Israel.

“They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?” Brzezinski said. “We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not.”

Brzezinski even suggested, “No one wishes for this but it could be a Liberty in reverse.”

That was an allusion to an incident in the 1967 Six Day War in which Israeli jets and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty in international waters. Israel later called the attack an incident of “friendly fire.”

Netanyahu is set to address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday over the Iranian nuclear threat. Most Democrats have said they will not attend and Obama has said he will not meet with the prime minister since the talk will occur two weeks from Israeli elections.

—Gallup: Big Jump in Netanyahu Approval in United States
March 2, 2015

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is more popular with Americans than he has been in a long time.

At a time when liberals and members of the media have rebuked both Netanyahu and Speaker John for politicizing negotiations with Iran, Netanyahu is enjoying great favorable rating, according to a Gallup poll.

Netanyahu’s approval is now at 45 percent, a full ten points higher than two years ago. His disapproval stayed relatively the same, now at 24 percent. These are the best numbers Netanyahu has seen this millennium, clearly indicating whatever flak he is taking from the left is not damaging his brand with Americans.

In fact, Netanyahu’s favorability is higher than President Obama’s approval according to Gallup’s daily tracking poll.

Netanyahu is in Washington D.C., today to speak at AIPAC’s summit before he addresses a joint session of Congress on Tuesday.

Democrats disparaged Netanyahu for accepting Boehner’s invitation to speak at the joint session of Congress. The White House was exasperated at the “breach of protocol” because they were never notified of the arrangement until it was announced.

Still, an even number of Democrats view Netanyahu favorably as do unfavorably at 31 percent. Republicans are far more likely to support Netanyahu, with 42 percent more viewing him favorably then unfavorably.

The strained relationship between the White House and Israel does not appear to translate into the American people’s view of Israel’s leader.

—Netanyahu: ‘Israel Has Always Been a Bipartisan Issue’
March 2, 2015 By Melanie Hunter

(CNSNews.com) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a speech at the AIPAC Policy Conference 2015 in Washington, D.C., said his planned speech Tuesday before Congress was “not intended to inject Israel into the American partisan debate” nor to “show any disrespect to President Obama.”

“Never has so much been written about a speech that hasn’t been given, and I’m not going to speak today about the content of that speech, but I do want to say a few words about the purpose of that speech. First let me clarify what is not the purpose of that speech,” he said.

“My speech is not intended to show any disrespect to President Obama or the esteemed office that he holds. I have great respect for both,” Netanyahu said, adding that he “deeply” appreciates all that Obama has done for Israel: security cooperation, intelligence-sharing, and support of the United Nations to name a few.

House Speaker John Boehner invited Netanyahu to speak before Congress tomorrow, an invitation that has angered Democrats, who have said they will not attend the speech.

Netanyahu said his speech was “not intended to inject Israel into the American partisan debate.” He said the reason why the U.S.-Israel alliance “has grown stronger decade after decade is that it has been championed by both parties, and so it must remain.”

“Both Democratic and Republican presidents have worked together with friends from both sides of the aisle in Congress to strengthen Israel and our alliance between our two countries, and working together, they have provided Israel with generous military assistance and missile defense spending. We’ve seen how important that is just last summer,” Netanyahu said.

“Working together has made Israel stronger. Working together has made our alliance stronger, and that’s why the last thing that anyone who cares about Israel, the last thing that I would want is for Israel to become a partisan issue,” he said.

“I regret that some people have misperceived my visit here this week as doing that. Israel has always been a bipartisan issue. Israel should always remain a bipartisan issue,” Netanyahu added.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of my address to Congress tomorrow is to speak up about a potential deal with Iran that could threaten the survival of Israel. Iran is the foremost state-sponsor of terrorism in the world,” he said.

The prime minister pointed to a map which showed Iran training, arming, and dispatching terrorists on five continents.

“Iran envelopes the entire world with its tentacles of terror. This is what Iran is doing now without nuclear weapons. Imagine what Iran would do with nuclear weapons, and this same Iran vows to annihilate Israel. If it develops nuclear weapons, it would have the means to achieve that goal. We must not let that happen,” Netanyahu said.

In a series of anti-Israel tweets in November 2014, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for Israel to be annihilated, Slate reported on Nov. 9, 2014.

“This barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of #Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated. 7/23/14 #HandsOffAlAqsa” the tweet stated.

Netanyahu said that as prime minister of Israel, he has “a moral obligation to speak up in the face of these dangers while there’s still time to avert them.”

“For 2,000 years, my people, the Jewish people were stateless, defenseless, voiceless. We were utterly powerless against our enemies who swore to destroy us. We suffered relentless persecution and relentless attacks. We could never speak on our own behalf, and we could not defend ourselves. Well no more!” he said.

“The days when the Jewish people are passive in the face of threats to annihilate us, those days are over!” Netanyahu added.

A British man who went to fight with the Kurds against Islamic State has claimed the terror group fed a desperate mother a meal of meat and rice before revealing she had eaten her own son. Yasir Abdulla, 36, from Yorkshire said that the woman had appealed to IS to release her son when they tricked her.

Adbulla told The Sun the woman was offered a seat at IS headquarters, then given a drink along with cooked meat and rice. At first she thought they were being generous, but when she finished the meal they revealed the cooked meat was the flesh of her son, whom they had murdered earlier.

Mr Adbulla said: “I hate IS because of what happened to an old Kurdish woman from a nearby tribe. Her son was captured by IS fighters and taken as a prisoner to Mosul.

“She was determined to find her son and went to IS headquarters and asked to see him. The IS men told her to sit down because she had travelled a long way and said she should have some food before they took her to meet her son.

“They brought her cups of tea and fed her a meal of cooked meat, rice and soup. She thought they were kind.

“But they had killed him and chopped him up and after she finished the meal and asked to see her son they laughed and said, ‘You’ve just eaten him’.”

He added: “All the tribes are united against IS. They burn people alive, they chop off people’s heads, there is no limit to their depravity. They are not Muslims, they have hijacked Islam. All they do is hate.”

This is not the first report of horrific barbarism by the Islamic State, a group that have become famous for the gruesome treatment of their prisoners. In some cases they have beheaded them on camera, and in others they have burnt them alive.

Even if many Muslims came to Europe seeking economic opportunity, they are often defined as victims of racism and oppression. So, the thinking goes, if you are a victim of racism and oppression, how can you be racist yourself?

The Palestinians repeat almost daily that they would like to kill the Israelis, while the Israelis say they would like peace. What follows are usually bitter, politically-motivated denunciations of Israel by Europe, masquerading as human rights.

Despite the increasingly savage state of the world and an openly genocidal Iran — soon to be nuclear, if it is not already — Israeli leaders remain the ones Europeans love to accuse, hate and demonize.

The terrorist attacks are denounced by journalists and political leaders, but their denunciations always sound sanctimonious and thin, condemning the “anti-Semitism” they themselves have been encouraging.

In Europe today, slandering Israel is widely conveyed by European Muslims, and if a political leader or journalist does not agree with what they say, he must be a racist.

There are now 44 million Muslims in Europe.

In Europe, evoking the memory of Auschwitz has become difficult; tomorrow, it may be impossible.

The ceremony marking the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp was held on January 27 — and will likely be the last commemoration of its kind. The Nazis wanted a Europe without Jews. They killed six million, but in their ultimate goal, they failed.

Three hundred survivors were invited; all were more than eighty years old. Although filmed testimonies will remain, there may be no more direct witnesses.

While European political leaders speak of Auschwitz with the solemn formula of “never again,” it increasingly seems meaningless. Surveys show that in most European countries, including Germany, a growing number of people want to turn the page, and say they want forget about the Holocaust in a way they do not say they want to forget about, for instance, the Crucifixion.

When articles on the Holocaust are published in major European magazines, an increasing number of people leave comments to point out that the Holocaust was just one genocide among others, and there is no reason to insist on this one in particular.

When other genocides are evoked, the fate of the Palestinians also quickly takes center stage, even though the Palestinians repeat almost daily that they would like to kill the Israelis, while the Israelis say they would like peace. The Israelis have never said they would like to kill the Palestinians.

What follows are usually bitter, politically motivated denunciations of Israel by Europe, masquerading as human rights.

Despite the monstrous crimes committed by the Islamic State, Boko Haram or Iran; despite two hundred thousand dead in Syria; and despite the massacres of Christians and Yezidis in Iraq, for European journalists, the Jewish state remains, it seems, the favored prime target.

Where else in the middle east but Israel can a journalist lead a comfortable life, file a story along the only lines his editor will like by noon, go to the beach, and have dinner with his family? Maybe if he bashes Israel enough, his story will even make the front page, and he will receive an award for courage in journalism. So, in the international media, Israeli Jews are often libelously described as criminals who simply are doing to other people what was done to the Jews seventy years ago.

Despite the increasingly savage state of the world, with an openly genocidal Iran — soon to be a nuclear, if it is not already — and with the squalid brutality of dictators such as Bashar al-Assad, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Kim Jong Un and Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, Israeli leaders remain the ones many Europeans love to accuse, hate and demonize.

The desire to forget the past, to hurl degrading charges against Israeli Jews, to slander the Jewish state, and to demonize Israeli leadership displays a growing animosity against Jews, in addition to encouraging renewed anti-Jewish violence on European soil.

Often anti-Israeli demonstrations are punctuated with explicit slogans targeting Jews. These demonstrations then lead to riots and physical attacks against synagogues and Jews.

The attacks are denounced by journalists and political leaders, but their denunciations always sound sanctimonious and thin, condemning the “anti-Semitism” they themselves have been encouraging. Most European journalists and political leaders claim to fight anti-Semitism. Most do not.[1] They almost never address the harsh words used about Israel, Israeli Jews or Israel’s leaders. They speak and act as if those words had no influence. Their denunciations therefore always sound devious and glossy.

The long, persistent, European hatred of Jews, which led to Auschwitz, was a crime so sickening that, for a few decades, Europeans were crushed with shame. Since then, they seem to have sought unceasingly to alleviate this burden.

One attempt, Holocaust denial, merely sparked outrage and horror for a while. Attempts to trivialize the Holocaust persist. The growing desire in many Europeans to forget about those events could even be making trivializing the Holocaust a success.

Another attempt is to slander Israel. If falsely accusing it of being a criminal state; and Israeli Jews of being unacceptable; and Israeli leaders of having dark plans, then Europeans can see themselves as less criminal and allow themselves to feel less guilt.[2]

Slandering Israel in Europe is also effective because, although it comes from both extremes, it mostly comes from the “left.”[3]

The “left” portrays itself as “anti-fascist”; anyone who does not agree with their views must therefore be a fascist.

They describe Palestinian Arabs as victims, which they are – but not because of Israel. No Palestinians are now governed by Israelis, only Arabs. Israel forcibly evacuated all the Jews from Gaza in 2005, so it could be, for the Palestinians, a “Singapore on the Mediterranean.” Israelis left greenhouses in perfect condition for them, so the Palestinians could start out with a solid economy. The Palestinians destroyed the greenhouses within hours. Hamas threw Fatah members off the tops of buildings until Fatah ran away. Hamas now rules Gaza in a unity government with Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority. Support for Abbas’s Fatah is support for Hamas.

But many Europeans – even now, faced with the same terror attacks Israel has faced for years — do not let such facts get in their way. Never mind that the Palestinians had built secret death-tunnels for surprise attacks to kidnap and murder Jewish civilians Never mind that the Palestinians continually call for the death — not just of Israelis — but of Jews. Never mind that Palestinians rejected every partition, land or peace offer, granting them 98% of what they asked, since 1947. Many Europeans still describe Israeli Jews as fascist torturers, sometimes comparable to the Nazis.[4]

Slandering Israel is effective in Europe today because there has been a shift in its population. Millions of Muslim migrants have come there. Now they are European citizens. Even if many originally came to Europe seeking economic opportunity, they are often defined by Europeans as victims of racism and oppression. So, the thinking goes, if you are a victim of racism and oppression, how can you be racist yourself?

Many Muslims have been indoctrinated from childhood to hate Israel, hate the Jews and hate the West.[5] This view is helped along by genocidal Islamic texts; the Palestinian media, both Hamas and Fatah; the international media, who only accept articles that have an anti-Israeli angle, and European-funded, non-governmental organizations which pretend to defend “human rights” but instead are dedicated to the political agenda: trying to dismantle Israel.

European governments and the European Union each year spend hundreds of million of euros– transparency and accountability rigorously kept hidden — for the political agenda of trying to bring Israel to its knees, diplomatically and economically. This international agenda is spurred on with the encouragement of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC], composed of 56 states plus “Palestine,” and which makes up the largest bloc at the deeply corrupt United Nations.

In Europe today, slandering Israel is widely conveyed by European Muslims, and if a political leader or journalist does not agree with what they say, he must be a racist.

Hatred of Israel so permeates the European atmosphere that almost no journalists or political leaders — with the exception of a courageous few, who are immediately and harshly punished — seem prepared to confront it in a way that might actually bear results.

A few years ago, attacks against Jews in Europe could be violent, but rarely led to assassinations. But all this started to change in 2006, when a group in Paris kidnapped and tortured a young Jew, Ilan Halimi, for three weeks before finally killing him. In 2012, the man who attacked the Jewish school in Toulouse also wanted to kill Jews, and did. The man who attacked the Brussels Jewish Museum in 2014 wanted to kill Jews, and did. He did. The man who entered kosher supermarket in Paris on January 9 wanted to kill Jews, and did. The man who attacked a synagogue in Copenhagen on February 14 wanted to kill Jews; perhaps to his disappointment, he killed only one.

In response to the attacks, some extremely praiseworthy Muslims were among the 1,000 people in Norway, who, in solidarity with the Jews, formed a “ring of peace” around the main synagogue in Oslo. “We do not want individuals to define what Islam is for the rest of us,” said one of the demonstration’s organizers, Zeeshan Abdullah. But more attacks in Europe will follow.

European populations remain passive and inert. They reacted in Paris on January 11 mostly because famous cartoonists were killed two days earlier than the attack on the kosher store. Had it been only Jews that were killed, there probably would have been no crowd reaction at all. There were no crowds after the Toulouse or Brussels killings. There was also, before the Muslim ring in Copenhagen, a small crowd reaction after the murder there – most likely because the killer had also attacked a meeting on free speech.

World leaders link arms at the Paris anti-terror rally on January 11, 2014. Guy Millière writes that had it been only Jews that were been killed, there probably would have been no rally at all. (Image source: RT video screenshot)

Israeli leaders, deciphering the situation, have for years denounced the rising anti-Israel atmosphere in Europe, and accurately predicted what the violent consequences would be.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has repeated that at least now there is a Jewish state where Jews can live freely.

More than 60,000 Jews have left Europe during the past decade, and thousands are still leaving.

While there were 9.8 million Jews in Europe in 1939, there are now 1.4 million: 0.2% of the population.

There are now 44 million Muslims in Europe. The number of those who are radicalized is on the rise, and the number who hate Israel and Jews is high.

Seventy years after Auschwitz, a Europe without Jews now seems a possibility.

—-Report: Iraqi Forces AGAIN Claim US is Supplying ISIS with Weapon Drops
Claim to have shot down US chopper full of weapons
March 2, 2015 by Steve Watson

Iraqi forces have once again sensationally charged that the US military is purposefully dropping weapons to terrorist militants in the western parts of the country, according to a report.

The Iranian Fars News Agency reports “A group of Iraqi popular forces known as Al-Hashad Al-Shabi shot down a US Army helicopter that was carrying weapons for the ISIL in the western parts of Al-Baqdadi region in Al-Anbar province” last week.

The report claims that the fighters posted a picture (see above) online of the downed chopper and the weapons that were recovered.

The claims comes on the heels of reports last week that the Iraq Army shot down two British planes also delivering weapons to the Islamic State.

“The Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee has access to the photos of both planes that are British and have crashed while they were carrying weapons for the ISIL,” Head of the committee Hakem al-Zameli said, according to the Arabic-language information center of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.

Hakem al-Zameli, a senior Iraqi legislator, added that the current government in Baghdad is receiving daily reports from security forces in al-Anbar province about flights airdropping weapons to ISIS.

The reason for the drops, according to the legislator, is to prolong a chaotic situation in Anbar Province.

Last week, video was also released claiming to show a US Chinook helicopter dropping two boxes full of weapons for ISIS by flying at a low altitude in an extremist controlled area south of Fallujah. The footage is said to have been filmed by the Iraq-based Hezbollah Brigades.

There were even reports that some US helicopters landed in Fallujah, a main base of ISIS linked Takfiri militants in Iraq. Iraqi lawmakers have urged the government to open an investigation into the matter.

The claims of the US and the UK supplying weapons to ISIS extremists have now been ongoing for some time.

It is certainly evident that US made weapons have fallen into ISIS hands on multiple occasions.

“We have discovered weapons made in the US, European countries and Israel from the areas liberated from ISIL’s control in Al-Baqdadi region,” the al-Ahad news website quoted the head of the al-Anbar Provincial Council Khalaf Tarmouz as saying recently.

Weapons made in Europe and Israel were also discovered in Ramadi, Tarmouz said.

“The US drops weapons for the ISIL on the excuse of not knowing about the whereabouts of the ISIL positions and it is trying to distort the reality with its allegations,” he said.

You might remember this heartwarming Toyota commercial that aired during this year’s Superbowl.

This past weekend, Saturday Night Live did a spoof version of it, featuring the night’s host Dakota Johnson (she of 50 Shades fame). Instead of dropping off his daughter as she went off to join the U.S. Army, this dad watched his daughter go off to join ISIS.

If not for cell phone video, 47-year-old disabled veteran Douglas Dendinger could be going to prison — because of an apparent coordinated effort by Washington Parish, La. cops and prosecutors who falsely accused him of battery and witness intimidation.

As New Orleans’ WWL reports, Dendinger’s two-year nightmare began on Aug. 20, 2012, when he was paid $50 to serve a court summons on behalf of his nephew against Bogalusa police officer Chad Cassard in a police brutality lawsuit.

Dendinger handed Cassard a white envelope containing the documents and says he went on his way. But 20 minutes later, police showed up to Dendinger’s house and arrested him. He was put in jail on charges of simple battery, obstruction of justice and intimidating a witness.

Two of those charges are felonies, and a prior cocaine conviction on Dendinger’s record threatened to land him in jail for a long time as a repeat offender.

But Dendinger was confident that a mistake had been made and that he would be released without cause since two prosecutors and several police officers had seen him hand over the summons peacefully.

But that’s not what happened.

A year after the incident, then-District Attorney Walter Reed brought charges against Dendinger. His case was backed by two prosecutors who asserted that Dendinger had assaulted Cassard. Seven witness statements also supported the case.

Cassard made the same claim, writing in a voluntary statement that Dendinger “slapped him in the chest” when he served the summons.

Pamela Legendre, a staff attorney who witnessed the hand-off, said she thought Dendinger had punched Cassard.

Bogalusa police chief Joe Culpepper said that Dendinger had used “violence” and “force.”

And another witness said in a deposition that Dendinger used such force when he served the summons that Cassard flew back several feet.

“It wasn’t fun and games, they had a plan, the plan was really to go after him and put him away. That is scary,” Philip Kaplan, the attorney representing Dendinger in his civil rights case, told WWL.

“I realized even more at that moment these people are trying to hurt me,” Dendinger told the news station.

Luckily for Dendinger, his wife and nephew had filmed him that day in order to prove that the court papers had been served.

Grainy video of the exchange shows Dendinger handing Cassard the summons and the former police officer walking away in the opposite direction. Though the video aired by WWL does not show the entire encounter, what it does not show is Dendinger slapping anyone or acting aggressively during the crucial moment when he served the summons.

The video also shows that the witness who claimed that Denginger’s force pushed Cassard back several feet had his back turned as the scene unfolded.

After Reed was forced to recuse his office from the case, it was referred to the Louisiana attorney general who quickly dropped the charges against Dendinger.

Rafael Goyeneche, president of the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission, told WWL that after viewing the video he did not see Dendinger commit battery on Cassard and that the officers and prosecutors involved could be looking at serious ethics charges.

“I didn’t see a battery, certainly a battery committed that would warrant criminal charges being preferred,” Goyeneche said.

“It’s a felony to falsify a police report,” Goyeneche continued. “So this is a police report, and this police report was the basis for charging this individual.”

Kaplan made the obvious point: ”If this was truly a battery on a police officer, with police officers all around him, why isn’t something happening right there?”

—-LAPD Shooting: The New ‘Michael Brown’?
Social justice warriors pounce on incident before facts are in
March 2, 2015 by Paul Joseph Watson

Despite circumstances surrounding the incident remaining unclear, the shooting of a homeless man by LAPD officers yesterday has been seized upon by some as the latest Michael Brown-style social justice campaign.

The victim, know only by his nickname ‘Africa’, was shot and killed on the city’s Skid Row after officers say he tried to grab their weapons. The incident was captured on a low quality video recording.

Witnesses said the man punched and kicked officers as they tried to arrest him, before reaching for one of their firearms.

This appears to be backed up by the audio of the incident, with officers heard to say, “drop the gun” and “he has my gun” before the fatal shots are fired.

However, just as in the Michael Brown case, other eyewitnesses contradicted this account, claiming that the officers merely chose to execute the man because he was struggling.

“He didn’t have no weapon, they just shot him,” Yolanda Young, told KTTV. “They could have just wrestled him down and took him to jail, but they shot him five times.”

“When they couldn’t apprehend him, that’s when they backed up and just started shooting. Pow, pow, pow, pow. There was five of them. They could have apprehended him,” said another witness, Ceola Waddell.

Early facts about the incident suggest that the victim of the shooting was acting violently and that his behavior was a key factor in his death. ‘Africa’ was witnessed to have been fighting with another homeless man before police arrived. Reports that one officer was wearing a body camera during the struggle may be able to clear up whether the man reached for a weapon.

In the case of Michael Brown, it took autopsy and ballistics evidence to prove that Brown did indeed likely reach for Officer Darren Wilson’s gun during the encounter last summer and almost certainly did not have his “hands up” when Wilson fired the fatal shots.

However, before waiting for the dust to settle and the facts to emerge, many of the same people who ignored or twisted the preponderance of evidence in the Michael Brown shooting are back on the scene to spin the same narrative of an unarmed black man being summarily executed by police.

As we repeatedly documented during the height of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement late last year, activists seemed intent on highlighting cases which were ambiguous at best or ones where a lethal response by police was clearly justified, such as an incident just before Christmas where Antonio Martin was shot dead by a St. Louis cop after the teen pointed a loaded gun at the officer’s head.

This only served to discredit legitimate opposition to the genuine problem of police brutality. The ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement lost even more credibility when protesters started harassing white people, including children, in restaurants and shopping malls.

We report on innumerable examples of unjustified police brutality almost every single day, yet segments of the racially charged left routinely obsess on incidents where the victims are black people, even though in most cases, such as Michael Brown and Antonio Martin, those killings appear to be justified.

The problem of police brutality will not be resolved by jumping to conclusions just because they fit into the pre-defined narrative which has been pushed by the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, especially when such cases eventually prove to discredit that very narrative.

After having his leadership repudiated by his own caucus yesterday, last night Speaker Boehner turned to his best friend in the House, minority leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)11%, for a life line. Using a procedural motion to suspend the rules, which required two-thirds vote, Boehner passed the Orwellian named Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act by a vote of 357-60. He did it with Democrat votes. Where he lost 51 GOP members on the earlier vote he lost 55 GOP members the second time around.

The mind boggles.

What is going to happen in one week that fixes this problem?

More to the point, what is going to happen in a week with funding that wouldn’t happen faster in a week without funding?

Right now both Boehner and McConnell are negotiating with themselves over the terms of their own surrender. This did not have to be.

Funding DHS is completely irrelevant to DHS continuing operations to national security is not jeopardized in any way, shape, or form. If you want to have your crotch groped by some mouth-breather at the airport, you secret fetish is not endangered. In a sane world, Boehner and McConnell would see that they can walk away from this farce and let Reid and Obama decide when they want DHS to resume full operations.

While the fallout and downside are minuscule, the stakes are huge. Will Congress acquiesce in letting Obama set his own immigration policy, a policy that runs counter to the law? The only tool Congress has in this battle is the appropriations authority. If it won’t refuse to appropriate money to fund non-essential functions of DHS, it has become irrelevant and we are a dictatorship, not a constitutional republic.

—Boehner looks for a life line… from the DemocratsIf he tries this he will need a fire extinguisher
March 2nd, 2015 By: streiff (Diary)

As we saw last week, Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)N/A‘s leadership has become so weak that he’s being forced to subcontract the Speakership to minority leader Nancy “no really, I never have to blink” Pelosi. His attempt to fund DHS for three weeks was rejected by the House, he lost 51 GOP votes. The week long extension passed because Pelosi whipped that vote, even so Boehner lost 54 GOP votes. This is not a ding only on Boehner. Both Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)Heritage ActionScorecardRep. Kevin McCarthy40%House Republican Average61%See Full Scorecard40% and Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA)76% deserve raspberries for the way they are managing what should be a very simple strategy, one that Speaker Boehner ably articulated weeks ago: the House has acted now the Senate needs to act.

Because suasion and leadership have failed, it is reported that now Boehner is looking at an obscure parliamentary maneuver to give Senate Democrats what they want:

Going to conference is debatable in the Senate, meaning the motion can be filibustered. Accordingly, the Senate is scheduled to hold what should be an ill-fated cloture vote Monday evening to limit debate on an agreement to go to conference with the House. If the Senate then returns the papers to the House, it could provide an opening for Democrats to test a seldom-invoked provision of the chamber’s rules.

Clause four of House Rule XXII (not to be confused with the more-often cited Senate Rule XXII) provides: “When the stage of disagreement has been reached on a bill or resolution with House or Senate amendments, a motion to dispose of any amendment shall be privileged.”

As the Congressional Research Service explains, “A chamber enters the stage of disagreement by formally agreeing to a motion or a unanimous consent request that it disagrees to the position of the other chamber, or that it insists on its own position.”

In other words, any House lawmaker, arguing that a conference scenario is moot and won’t be resolved before the clock runs out on the current extension of DHS funding, could take to the floor and move that the House recedes from its previous position and concurs in the Senate amendment.

Because such a motion is “privileged” that would then trigger a vote on sending the Senate-amended full year Homeland Security appropriations bill to Obama’s desk without any of those riders designed to block his executive actions on immigration.

“Your vote tonight will assure that we will vote for full funding next week,” House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)See Full Scorecard11%, D-Calif., wrote in a Friday evening Dear Colleague letter to her fellow Democrats, encouraging them to support a one-week Homeland Security CR.

If it were to prevail, Democratic aides told CQ Roll Call that Republicans think the plan could protect Boehner from blame that he “caved” to his party’s moderates. Boehner and his allies could just point to House Rules and parliamentary procedure, however obscure and arcane, to explain what just occurred ostensibly beyond his control.

Re-read the last paragraph to see who is behind this.

I hope to heaven that no one in Boehner’s office thinks he can avoid blame for this or that anyone believes anything hits the House floor without his acquiescence. Because that would mean that they are stupider than they think we are.

Rarely in the history of representative government has a majority party been so effortlessly emasculated by a minority party. McConnell’s inept management of this has created a perceived crisis where none exists: about 85% of DHS will stay on the job without an appropriation. Hopefully the other 15% will find gainful employment elsewhere. National security is not harmed. Less money is spent. And a message is sent to the White House that the Congress will not allow Obama to create his own laws. This is really no-brain stuff.

Instead, we are saddled with Congressional leadership that no only doesn’t know how to win– or even play the game for that matter — but who seem viscerally opposed to the idea of winning.

—DHS What is it Good For?
Late Friday night, Congress passed legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security for one week
March 2, 2015 by Ron Paul

Late Friday night, Congress passed legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security for one week. This vote followed weeks of debate over efforts to attach a prohibition on funding President Obama’s executive order granting amnesty to certain illegal immigrants to the Homeland Security funding bill.

Despite the heated rhetoric from both sides, no one seriously believes that Congress will allow Homeland Security funding to lapse. Most in Congress believe that, without the Department of Homeland Security, Americans would be left unprotected from terrorists and natural disasters. As with most areas of bipartisan agreement, the truth is the exact opposite of the DC consensus. The American people would be much better off if Congress transferred the few constitutional functions performed by Homeland Security to other parts of the government and then shut down the rest of the department.

Many Americans associate Homeland Security with the color–coded terrorist warning system and the “if you see something, say something” public relations campaign. These programs were designed to inspire public confidence in the department, but instead they inspired public ridicule.

Ironically, the best case for shutting down this department is its most well-known component — the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). More terrorist attacks have been thwarted by airline passengers than by the TSA! The TSA may be ineffective at stopping terrorists, but it is very effective at harassing innocent Americans like Lucy Forck. Three-year-old Lucy, who uses a wheelchair, not only had to endure an intrusive screening from TSA agents, but the agents also took away her beloved stuffed animal.

When not abusing children who use wheelchairs, TSA subjects airline passengers to rules that seem designed to make air travel as unpleasant as possible. For example, TSA recently forced a Campaign for Liberty staffer to throw away a jar of Nutella she had in her carry-own luggage. I am sure all airline passengers feel safe knowing that TSA is protecting them from sandwich spreads.

Ending the TSA would return responsibility for airline security to airports and airlines. Private businesses have a greater incentive than a government bureaucracy to ensure their customers’ safety. Those conservatives who think this is a radical idea should try to think of one area where they trust government bureaucrats to do a better job than private business owners.

Another agency within Homeland Security that the American people could do without is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Having spent fifteen years in Congress representing a coastal area subject to hurricanes and floods, I have seen first-hand how FEMA places adherence to bureaucratic rules ahead of aiding victims of a natural disaster. As a result, it is not uncommon for disaster victims to wait months or even years for assistance.

FEMA not only fails to provide effective relief to disaster victims, it also impedes private disaster relief efforts. FEMA even hinders disaster victims’ efforts to help themselves. While in Congress, I heard stories of individuals being threatened with fines or even jail time if they returned to their property without FEMA’s permission. One individual in my district was threatened with arrest if he removed a tarp that FEMA put on his house — even though FEMA was supposed to have put it on his neighbor’s house!

Ten years after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, it is clear that this department has failed to protect our security, but has infringed on liberty. If Congress really wanted to enhance our security and our liberty it would shut down this unnecessary, unconstitutional department.

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) says President Obama’s executive action on immigration is unconstitutional and it’s unfair — and that’s why he and 51 other House conservatives voted against a Homeland Security funding bill on Friday that included money for Obama’s attempt to go beyond existing immigration law.

“We need to make the case. We haven’t made the case strong enough,” Jordan told CNN’s “State of the Union,” hosted by the liberal — and sharply critical — Dana Bash (see below).

“What the president did, how is it fair to citizens if you let noncitizens, illegals, go back and get tax refunds for the last three years, as (IRS) Commissioner Koskinen has testified under oath? How is it fair to seniors if you let noncitizens, illegals, participate in our Social Security system? How is it fair to voters?” Jordan asked.

“Our secretary of state, under oath, came and testified in Congress and said noncitizen illegals are going to have a potential now to be involved in our election process, to actually vote.

“And, most importantly, Dana, how is it fair, what the president did, how is it fair to those legal immigrants who did it the right way, who followed the law? How is it fair to them?”

Bash accused Jordan and other conservatives of being more interested in “sticking to principle” than they are in governing.

“We’re most interested in adhering to the principles that are consistent with the Constitution,” Jordan replied. “We’re most interested in doing what the voters elected us to do in November. You don’t think this was a big issue in the election last November? Of course it was…And the voters spoke overwhelmingly.”

Jordan said conservatives want Democrats to join Republicans in a conference committee to work out differences between the “clean” DHS funding bill passed by the Senate — and the bill passed six weeks ago by the House, which includes an amendment barring funding to carry out Obama’s plan to give Social Security numbers to illegal aliens.

“Basic civics,” Jordan said. “And now all we’re saying is, let’s go to conference committee. You passed government class in high school. I did, too. And we know how it works. We pass something, they pass something, you go sit around a table just like this, a nice, round table, and you work out the differences.

“What’s wrong with that process? That’s how it’s supposed to work.” Jordan said. He added, “that’s all” conservatives wanted when they went to House Republican leader and presented their plan last week: “Let’s go to conference. Make sure we go to conference.”

Jordan later said, “We need to get to conference and make sure language that’s close to what we passed in the House is the final product.”

Amid the recent impasse over DHS funding, Joran said he has not discussed an effort with other conservatives to remove John Boehner from the House speakership:

“No, of course not. That’s not…”

“Wait. Wait. Yes or no?” Bash interrupted.

“No. That’s not the point. The point is to do — to do what we told the voters we were going to do, and to do it in a way that’s consistent with the United States Constitution, consistent with fundamental fairness…”

Jordan said House conservatives will not challenge Boehner’s leadership, even if Boehner allows a vote on a clean funding bill next week, when the latest stopgap measure runs out.

“If your colleagues, if your conservative colleagues come to you and say, we want to try to make a play, we’re done with this leadership team, we want to try to make a play to get rid of them?” Bash asked.

“That’s — that’s — no, that’s not going to happen,” Jordan insisted.

Bash asked Jordan why conservative don’t just move to impeach the president “if you think that what the president did was so unconstitutional?”

“We’re not going to do that, either,” Jordan replied.

“One last question,” Bash said. “Do you want the House Republican leadership to succeed or not?”

“Of course we want them to succeed, because that helps the country succeed. That’s good for the families we represent,” Jordan said.

Bash began her interview with under the heading of “chaos in Congress,” saying, “The drama I watched unfold in the Capitol Friday night was different” than other chaotic events she’s covered:

“Now, I was reporting from the Capitol Friday night and had exasperated veteran Republican lawmakers say things to me like, how are we supposed to govern? They were at a loss with how to control their own right flank, at a time when American security couldn’t be more important.”

As she introduced Jordan — “a conservative from that right flank at the heart of all of this” — Bash announced she wanted to ask “the first question that everybody out there is probably asking, probably in disgust, saying, really? What is wrong with Congress? Why can’t you govern? And why can’t you fund a government agency that keeps us safe?”

Bash later asked Jordan why he doesn’t understand the “political reality” that there are not enough votes in the Senate to pass anything other than a clean funding bill; and she also raised criticism by another lawmaker that Jordan and other like-minded conservatives are “phony” because they have “no credible policy proposals and no political strategy to stop Obama’s lawlessness.”

Bash ended the interview by saying that Congress “feels more chaotic. And it is impossible at this moment for the House speaker and the leadership to govern. And they feel like it is, because you-all just don’t take yes for an answer.”

Jordan told her, “What’s best for the country is to fund the Homeland Security Department — to fund the Homeland Security Department, but do it in a way consistent with the Constitution.

“That’s what the country — that’s what the election was about. The last time I checked, Republicans did pretty well in the election last November. We’re supposed to actually — politicians, when they get elected, are actually supposed to do what they told the voters they were going to do when they got the job.”

Rule Of Law: First, the president issues unlawful executive orders giving illegal immigrants amnesty. Then, he dares an equal branch of government to vote on his orders’ legality so he can veto it. Is he establishing a monarchy?

While speaking at a town hall meeting Wednesday night at Florida International University, President Obama clearly indicated that he believes he is the final authority on law in this country. He will not tolerate dissent.

“If Mr. McConnell, the leader of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, want to have a vote on whether what I’m doing is legal or not, they can have that vote. I will veto that vote, because I’m absolutely confident that what we’re doing is the right thing to do,” he told a group organized by Democratic Rep. Jose Diaz-Balart.

In November, Obama announced a set of unilateral actions to change the immigration system. Government agencies were ordered not to enforce the law against up to 5 million illegal immigrants in the country. He also declared that they would not be subject to deportation and were to be handed green cards.

There was no vote in Congress. No consultation with the House and Senate. No law cited that gave him the authority. Just his word.

A month ago, we wondered if Obama was “so hellbent on amnesty for illegals he’ll resort to nullifying and even breaking the law.” Today, we know that he is.

Not even a federal judge’s ruling has stopped him from making and unmaking law as he sees fit. On Feb. 16, Southern Texas District Judge Andrew Hanen issued a temporary injunction against the administration’s executive lawmaking. “No, Mr. President,” said the George W. Bush appointee, “you and your party’s long-term political agenda are not above the law.”

The administration wants Hanen’s order lifted, but one should assume that even if the courts don’t rule Obama’s way, the White House will eventually do as it wishes and challenge the courts to stop it, just as it has taunted Congress.

Several times during Obama’s six years in office he has insisted he’s not a king able to act alone. He said it right up until he began to overtly behave as one.

House Speaker John Boehner’s office counted 22 times that Obama said “he couldn’t ignore or create his own immigration law.”

Yet at a time of his choosing, the president decided he could indeed create his own immigration law, just as he made changes to the Affordable Care Act as if it were his own set of commandments handed down from on high.

Obama is the president who said all he needed was a pen and a phone, that he wasn’t going to wait around for Congress to act.

He’s the Oval Office occupant who, while visiting Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home in Charlottesville, Va., a year ago with French President Francois Hollande, declared that it’s a “good thing as a president, I can do whatever I want.”

We said then and still believe today that if he meant that quip to be a joke, “it’s a bad one, for it accurately describes the psyche of a president who governs by executive order and regulation.”

A little more than a year after Obama’s re-election, the Washington Times reported that “from immigration to the minimum wage, congressional Democrats and liberal activists … urged Mr. Obama to declare an end run around Capitol Hill, assert executive authority and make as much progress as he can on the expansive agenda he laid out for his second term.”

They knew with whom they were dealing.

Obama well represents the political left, which has no time or respect for constitutional limits, the rule of law or power shared among the three branches.

Today’s leftists, loosely defined as “progressives,” want raw political power to enact their agenda. And from Obama they’re getting it.

Life in America is no bed of roses. Nor are there any signs that things will get better anytime soon. However, in this week’s vodcast, constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead—author of the award-winning book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State—explains why, even with all that is wrong with the nation, it’s not time to give up on America.

Meta

Blogroll

A real soldier's view of WW II
I have a story to tell about my fathers WWII days and someone suggested that I start a blog. So here I am with no idea of what the heck I am doing. I have pictures of my fathers time overseas. I also have a suitcase full of letters. The first letter is f

Alex Jones' Infowars
Because there is a war on for your mind this website provides information you may not see elsewhere. Information is what we all need to have.

I Have Vanished
The goal of this website is to focus on both runaway juveniles and individuals who are missing against their will primarily within the United States. Reasons people go missing include being abducted, incapacitated or injured, a victim of a catastrophe, a

Islam 101
Islam 101 is meant to help people become better educated about the fundamentals of Islam and to help the more knowledgeable better convey the facts to others

Oath Keepers – Guardian of the Republic
Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, reserves, National Guard, veterans, Peace Officers, and Fire Fighters who will fulfill the Oath we swore, with the support of like minded citizens who take an Oath to sta

The Manhattan Declaration
A CALL OF CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

U.S. Terror History Map
There are three sections: “Court Cases”, “Radical Activities”, and Mosques and Islamic centers listed at one time were home to radical clerics or to conspirators in a terrorism-related investigations

Veterans For A Stronger America
America is safe – when America is strong.Veterans for a Strong America is a non-partisan action organization dedicated to educating the public, members of Congress and the Executive Branch about our 5 Step Mission to make America Strong:

Wall Builders
Presenting America’s Forgotten History and Heroes with an Emphasis on our moral, religious, and Constitutional heritage

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.